In The Air
RC soaring is not a crime.
There’s a Costco big box store not too far from where I live which stands just east of a great slope that runs due north and south for about two or three city blocks. The crest of the slope runs parallel to a road which is home to mostly light industrial tenants and low volume retail, so most times in the evening the street is empty. There’s a couple of parking spots at the north end of the slope about 20 or 30 paces from the best place to launch. My wife Michelle can sit in sheltered comfort parked parallel to the fall line. There, she can either knit or read while she also watches me stagger around the slope trying to make the best of the flagging evening breeze.
Any wind blowing from the east through south-southeast creates choppy but workable lift — not ideal, but when weighed against the convenience and seclusion the slope offers, it’s one of my favourite spots to fly. Raptors and crows seem to agree, as they can be seen laughing their asses off at me way below, struggling to stay aloft. The Costco roof, when it has been baking in the summer sun all day, can even kick off some almost-workable thermals. If the work schedule only allows 40 minutes on a warm summer evening, it’s perfect. It ain’t Pacific City — not even close — but it’s gritty urban soaring at its finest.
I sometimes wonder, as the airliners working Calgary International Airport’s runways 17/35 pass in the distance, whether I am running afoul of the to-the-surface Class C airspace that surrounds CYYC. That would definitely be a fly in the proverbial tincture. Admittedly I am not so concerned that I actually stop flying, but I figure my little foamy flown tight into the slope really isn’t a hazard to navigation for anybody. Except those raptors and crows, of course. Reckless, some might say, but my excuse is that I am a vestigial holdover from the pre-drone-triggered-regulations past. Back then, so long as you used your head, were respectful of your neighbours and avoided any proximity to airports, almost any open space was a potential flying field. It’s a hard habit to break.
Don’t get me wrong: I am a firm believer society is generally a little better off if we all follow the rules. I file and pay my taxes mostly on time, set my cruise control for no more than 7km/h over the speed limit and I park between the stripes in a parking lot even when it is completely empty. In other words, I like to think of myself as a generally law-abiding citizen. At least for the laws that actually make sense. Give me a rule to which I can reasonably comply, and I’ll follow it.
So when I received a rather ominous-looking broadcast email for the President of the Model Aeronautics Association of Canada (MAAC) with the subject MPPD-15 Altitude Limit Policy, my heart first went into my throat and then sank shortly thereafter. Opening it, I was informed of “MAAC’s decision to institute a default altitude limit of 700’ for all MAAC RPAS operations, namely radio-controlled flying models”.
What the…?!
In order to not fall victim to the folly of making snap judgements based on a headline — who ever does that, right? — I steadied myself on some nearby furniture lest I swoon, breathed deeply into a paper bag and read on:
…many existing and potentially other sites that may be approved to operate at higher altitudes, which is why we have included a simple Altitude Waiver Request Form in MPPD-15. This will allow clubs with disciplines operating above 700’ AGL to request a more suitable limit, and to open the discussion of what common sense precautions are needed to be responsible at those altitudes and in the specific airspace…
Oh. So that means that so long as a group of like-minded glider guiders is willing to fill out the simple, one page form with some very reasonable questions and wants to fly on a field they’ve likely be flying on since — well — forever then it’s pretty much business as usual. At least that’s my interpretation of it.
A number of years ago I wrote Where Did All Those Drones Come From? (and reprinted it here in RCSD) which painted a fairly bleak picture of a dystopian future for anything that flies without the aid of a human pilot. I concluded that missive with mournful thoughts of “rubber powered stick-and-tissue airplanes curling through the sky and wonder[ing] if, like the days of my youth, they are lost forever.” In other words, whether a future trip to the local city park with a DLG may result in hard time. I genuinely feared that’s where things were headed.
The news from MAAC therefore comes as a huge relief.
To bring this full circle, let me return to the launch zone above Costco — is flying on this slope ‘legal’ or not? Fortunately, the MAAC email had a big chunk of the answer for that, as well: RPAS Wilco. I had some vague notion of this free mobile app (a least the name rang a bell) but I had no specific knowledge of what it did or how it worked. But it was promoted as the officially-sanctioned way of determining the status of a particular flying site with respect to restricted air space, which was good enough for me to initiate a download from The App Store.
Turns out that RPAS Wilco is a live, digital map with red-shaded regions for restricted airspace up to 400 ft above-ground-level (AGL) and blue-shaded regions for restricted airspace from 4800 feet above mean-sea-level (MSL) and up, respectively. Therefore, I can finally stand at the top of my favourite slope with my Ahi in one hand and RPAS Wilco in the other, and know exactly where I stand with respect to the law.
Case in point: based on a ‘site survey’ completed with RPAS Wilco at the Col de Costco I’m good to at least 400 AGL. Maybe even the new 700 foot default altitude mentioned in the email, given that the blue-shaded region kicks in at about 1300 feet above the launch zone at the top of the slope. Life is good.
There are, however, a few additional boxes which need to be ticked to fully green-light sanctioned flight ops at this location: the Costco site is 1.9NM from the helipad at a local hospital. That will have to be covered off with some paperwork. Also, the whole issue of surface access to the site must be resolved. Who actually owns the Col de Costco is as yet undetermined, but it seems reasonable that permission could be granted to use the otherwise vacant site in such a low traffic, basically industrial area.
On the flip side, there are sadly a few sites I have flown in the past which are no longer options. I also know that for sure. But I’m not going to bitch and whine about my ‘freedoms being taken away’. Life teaches you don’t always get exactly what you want — compromise is simply what you have to do to live in civil society. But given the Handmaid’s Tale future I visualised in my earlier essay, I’m relieved that this thing that we love to do has no prospect of being a crime at any time in the reasonable future.
At least so long as we also continue to use our heads and are respectful of our neighbours.
Obviously, the article above is very specific to Canada. The experience of readers in the over 90 other countries in which the New RC Soaring Digest is regularly read will be different and likely unique to where you live and fly. I urge you to engage with your local community to determine where things stand with respect to your particular jurisdiction. But the story in Canada is not an altogether bad one. In fact, I think of it as actually having a happy ending. Therefore there’s at least the promise it can be so for you, too. Or perhaps even better than what has already been achieved here in Her Majesty’s chilly dominion across the sea.
Furthermore, if you care to write-up the state-of-the-nation in your particular part of the world, please consider passing it along to the New RCSD, and we’ll run that and let others in your neighbourhood know where things stand.
It’s really important to stress the situation here is a result, in no small part, of the tireless volunteer efforts of MAAC working in collegial cooperation with the competant and reasonable professionals at Transport Canada. I am more re-assured than ever that all involved in these efforts are truly committed to safe skies, open and available to all for all manner of aerial persuits.
New Publication Deadline
After one too many all-nighters getting the latest issue of the New RCSD out, I was on the verge of a bloodless (hopefully?) coup when it was suggested “why don’t you just move the submission deadline to the middle of the month?” As with all things new and different, the visceral reaction was that would never work. Until we thought about it for something like, I dunno, three seconds. Problem solved. Decision made. From here on in, and until you hear otherwise, the new deadline for RCSD submissions is the end-of-day on the 15th of the month preceding the month in which the story runs. Of course, if you can’t make the 15th, we’ll still happily accept your article for the issue after the next issue.
Events
One of the commitments we made when RCSD launched into 2022 was to do as much as possible to encourage grassroots participation. This will be aided in no small part (hopefully!) by our Club in Focus articles, our Clubs page, and starting this month, with renewed attention on not-virtual get-togethers featured on our Events page which appears on the main navigation bar (and linked in Resources below).
Given that it’s coming up so quickly, make particular note of the Sky High Spring Aero Tow in Williamsport / Muncy, Pennsylvania on May 12–15, 2022. That’s still a couple of weeks away at the time of this writing, so still lots of time to make plans to attend. The flying field, based on Jeff Duhaime’s beautiful picture, looks absolutely out of this world!
Please let us know if we can add your event to the RCSD Events page!
Okay, RCSD readers, I have once again overstayed my welcome, I’m sure, so please scroll to the bottom of this article and have at the May issue. We feel fortunate to have you as our audience and we are deeply thankful to all who helped make the May issue the success I know it will be.
Until next month, fair winds and blue skies.
©2022 Terence C. Gannon
Resources
- Slope Soaring Over Costco — the full video for the clip featured in the key GIF above.
- MAAC MPPD-15 Altitude Limit Policy — the document which was the trigger for writing this article in the first place.
- RPAS Wilco — the Apple app mentioned in the article which is used for determining the status of air space around your favourite Canadian flying site. Also available for Android.
- Where Did All Those Drones Come From? — the dystopian future I forecast a number of years ago that now seems much less likely given recent developments.
- Club in Focus — as often as the NewRCSD receives submissions, one or more of these articles will be featured in each issue.
- Clubs — once it has been featured as a Club in Focus, the organization then gets added to this page for future reference.
- Events — Much more than your grandfathers events page — you should really take a look. Have an event you want to add to the page? Let us know!
Cover photo: The outstanding photo is by multi-RCSD-contributor Raymond Esveldt. Unfortunately, the details of the photo are lost to history, according to Raymond, with “taken during an aerotow event a few years back in the Netherlands” being his comment. Perhaps there is a reader out there who can provide more? But regardless, thanks to Raymond to permit this beautiful photo to be used for the May, 2022 cover. Also, you are welcome to download the May cover in a resolution suitable for computer monitor wallpaper (2560x1440).
Here’s the first article in the May, 2022 issue. Or go to the table of contents for all the other great articles. A PDF version of this edition of In The Air, or the entire issue, is available upon request.
